Wid's year book (1921)

The Coming Year Despite summer depression, optimism is the keynote for the future as indicated by the following expressions from the leading executives of the industry in response to an inquiry for their opinion on "What of the Coming Year." Cole Optimistic While conditions are certainly very unsatisfactory at the present time, it is my personal opinion that during the summer months they will have reached their lowest level, and with all indications pointing to production schedules being more in proportion to the actual demand for the productions, I believe that beginning with the fall season there will be an active demand for films, and that prices in proportion to the value of the product will be obtainable from exhibitors. R-C PICTURES CORP., R. S. Cole, President. Return to Normalcy I think that the coming year is going to bring a complete return to normal conditions and a reduction in the number of pictures made by each independent star and producer to provide the added time necessary for maintaining the degree of quality demanded by the public. J. D. WILLIAMS. Asso. First Natl. Who Can Tell? The fellow who can tell what will happen in the motion picture business in the next year is smarter than I am. Business will either be good or it will be bad. It will be good if optimism prevails; it will be bad if pessimism continues. Confidence of the people engaged in any business is the surest tonic for its growth and success. At the present writing it looks like too much pessimism. C. C. PETTIJOHN. Sees Silver Lining We have just emerged from the poorest season in motion picture industry, as experienced. However, I can see the silver lining in the clouds and feel satisfied that the coming year will show great improvement, although we can not expect to see the business as good as it was two years ago. Recovery is bound to be gradual. VICTOR KREMER. Not a Guesser My viewpoint of the coming year would necessarilly be guess work and I am not a good guesser. Our business in general will reflect, very largely, the industrial and commercial situation of the country, and in my opinion, it will take at least a year to stabilize these conditions. WM. A. JOHNSTON. Survival of Fittest The coming year will see "the survival of the fittest." The producers who can make the best pictures, and the exhibitors who are the real showmen will be the ones to survive. The present depression is the best thing that ever happened, because producers and exhibitors were pyramiding to the point beyond the possibility of success. We have all gone crazy, and we are going to realize after all, that "pictures are pictures," and there is just so much and no more. F. J. REMBUSCH. Handwriting Is On the Wall The handwriting on the wall plainly indicates that "the time for thinkers has come." I believe the coming year will see the doom of the mechanically gorgeous picture and the prosperity of those with big ideas behind them. ASHLEY MILLER. Banking Plus Distribution The Industrial year in motion pictures beginning in September, 1921, is going to bring the bankers and financiers who have put millions of dollars into production and distribution to their senses. In the past bankers and financiers have ignored the biggest element in this industry. Skilled distribution and merchandising is today the biggest and most important phase of the motion picture business. Sane operation has been utterly lacking. The men who have poured untold fortunes into distribution deficits will in the coming year realize more than ever before that distribution is a specialists' function and the financiers who have financed production henceforth are going to know in advance that the producers whom they finance are committed to a sane, temporate and capable distribution organization. From a banker's standpoint the maintenance of a dozen or more national distributing systems in the motion picture industry — three-quarters of which are inefficient and wasteful — is criminal and indefensible. This industry is heading rapidly to the point where all of the national distribution of the fifteen existing companies can be and will be handled by not more than three national distributing organizations. The men now operating inefficient distributions will bitterly resist this change but they will be overruled by the bankers who financed their companies who are going to no longer tolerate the duplications of the present system. F. B. WARREN. Lichtman Apprehensive I am looking forward to the coming year, in the picture business, with a great deal of apprehension, because I feel that the present haphazard, cut-throat method of distribution and of buying pictures has about reached its limit, and unless exhibitors, producers and distributors realize — and realize quickly — that a constructive plan whereby only the best pictures can play the best theatres and play them upon an equitable basis, and pictures of an inferior grade are relegated to cheaper houses regardless of who made the pictures or who may distribute them, the industry will meet with conditions from which it will be difficult to recover. Everyone must realize that the picture business has enjoyed abnormal prosperity during the war period, and particularly for a little over a year after the signing of the armistice, the picture business is no longer a war baby, and the industry must adjust itself to normalcy. To my mind, the thing that will bring about readjustment quicker than anything else, and the thing that will at the same time bring the crowds back to our theatres, 'will be an absolute open market that will give the utmost incentive to our creators of great pictures to do their level best. When the pictures are created they must be given a free opportunity to play the best theatres upon equitable terms; the system of forcing inferior production into first-class houses, just because somebody controls the best house and with it controls certain films, will stagnate the picture business and kill all incentive for the creators of the best motion pictures to do their level best. "AL" LICHTMAN, Gen. Mgr., Asso. Producers. 197